Corrosion, wear and tribocorrosion performance of a thermally sprayed aluminum coating modified by plasma electrolytic oxidation technique for offshore submerged components protection

Abstract Thermally Sprayed Aluminum (TSA) coatings have been widely employed to protect steel components from corrosion in marine environment. However, TSA is highly damaged in transport operations, due to the low wear resistance of aluminum, leading to a rapid coating deterioration during final service. In this work, the TSA properties have been improved by Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation (PEO) technique. The response of the newly generated TSA/PEO duplex system was investigated by means of sliding wear tests, electrochemical corrosion tests, and tribocorrosion tests in synthetic seawater. The study was completed with several characterization techniques, including SEM and confocal microscopy, and X-ray diffractometry.